Ouch! I have blisters on my hands. On Sunday I paddled in Sydney Harbour across the heads in a kayaking challenge.
It was more fun than a challenge – in fact the whole time I was paddling I kept thinking “how lucky am I”! Gorgeous day, beautiful harbour - if I could have, I would have jumped for joy.
The challenge was to raise money for Lifestart, a group that provides support for kids who have an intellectual disability or developmental delay. Before this challenge I hadn’t heard of Lifestart.
This type of fund raising event is a great way of raising the profile of a charity. Not only from media coverage for the actual event, but also by creating word of mouth from the participants – and there were over 700 of us.
Our team was a collection of people mostly connected through twitter. (I mean – how amazing is twitter!). We are connected because we all have a sense of adventure, community and gratitude. We promoted the event through our social media networks. So it reached thousands of people who, like me, probably hadn’t heard of this charity before.
Our team – The Paddlesteamers – did the 17.5km in 2hr 26m and were 59th of 195 teams. We raised money and awareness for Lifestart – and in the process we created even stronger personal and professional connections beyond twitter.
The blisters on my hands are a very small price to pay for a sense of achievement and gratitude for having such an amazing experience. See photos of the paddle and there is still time to donate.
PS To celebrate inspirational experiences, we are giving away a copy of the The Me Myth, a personal development book written by bestselling author (and our friend) Andrew Griffiths. The book has a brilliant, inspiring message — stop looking inwards for answers and start looking outwards. Andrew’s simple yet profound message is a result of an eye-opening personal journey. The 5th person to email me will receive the book. Good luck!
The results are in. PR drives news.
Organisations employ us to influence the news. That is the role of a PR agency. We come up with story ideas and media angles and pitch them to journalists writing for publications our clients’ target audience reads.
And it seems it works.
Crikey in conjunction with the University of Technology (UTS) Sydney’s Australian Centre for Independent Journalism (ACIJ) investigated the role PR plays in making the media.
They analysed a five-day working week in the media finding nearly 55% of stories were driven by some form of public relations. The Daily Telegraph came out on top with 70% of stories analysed triggered by public relations and The Sydney Morning Herald had 42% of PR-driven stories for that week. Melbourne’s The Age were 47% public relations driven compared to 65% in The Herald Sun.
Of 2,203 articles analysed, more than 500 or 24% had no significant extra perspective, source or content added by reporters. So 24% of journalists in that week put their byline on stories that were republished press releases with little or no significant extra journalism work.
Interestingly, the highest levels of PR content were found in the innovation/technology sections (77%) and police rounds (71%).
I understand that perhaps people that think they are reading original researched articles in the newspaper will be up in arms about this. But this highlights two things for me:
Firstly, it highlights that many journailists critically rely on PR people to supply them with stories.
Secondly, if you don’t have a PR Agency- Get one!
Four easy steps to take to increase traffic to your website.
Just having a website isn’t enough; you need to get traffic to your site. We asked expert Inbound Marketing & Social Media Strategist, Clodagh Higgins for her top tips to increase website traffic.
In today’s online world – Google’s metrics have a major influence on making sure your website will be seen quickly by people who are looking for your business. Here are some events coming up that we thought you might be interested in:
Google is the #1 search engine currently owning a whopping 65% market share in Australia, which means that 65 out of 100 Aussies go to Google to type in problems that they need solutions for.
It’s a bit like a popularity contest; if you tick all the boxes for the things that Google deems to be important, then you will be rewarded by appearing on the first page, even at the top of the first page, if you are very good!
To make sure that qualified potential clients find your website can you answer yes to these four questions?
1. Do you have a blog on your website?
2. Are you advertising your website in offline publications like specialist magazines for your industry?
3. Are your main keywords in the title page and/ or front page of your domain?
4. Do you advertise your website in Yahoo Directory every year?
If you answered no to one or more of these questions then you are missing out on online traffic and subsequently missing out on leads for your business.
Upcoming events
Networking & Self Promotion
Founder & Managing Director of Women’s Network Australia, Lynette Palmen will talk on networking and self promotion. This event will teach skills on how to make connections for business success and also give you the opportunity to put these skills into practice.
13 April 2010
Social Media Women
Women with an interest in social media are invited to attend the next meeting to be held by the newly launched formal networking group Social Media Women. Whether you are an expert or have never used social media – you will find it an inspirational and collaborative group.
13 April 2010
CeBIT Australia
CeBIT Australia is the leading business event in the Asia Pacific region for information and communications technology driving business strategy. 600 exhibitors and over 30,000 highly qualified trade visitors from overseas will be in attendance.
24-26 May 2010
XMediaLab
This event will feature a selection of expert digital media practitioners from around the world. People with original digital media ideas can connect with a network of independent creative thinkers, technology wizards, commercialisation experts, potential business partners, and potential resources.
28 May 2010
Australian Business Events Expo 2010
This event will focus on Australia’s event industry. It will showcase products and services amongst other items that will assist when it comes time to organise an event. This event is free to attend.
22-23 July 2010
Click here to sign up to receive the CP Communications newsletter directly in your inbox.
Comments
Post has no comments.